Beyond Flagship and Opposite-of-Flagship

[guest in the west]

Seeing all the postings for Amtrak flagship and non-flagship train nominees, is there a list out there--or a link to one--that has a comprehensive accounting all Amtrak trains since 1971 that no longer run?

The Desert Wind, the Hilltopper and the River Cities come to mind immediately, but there must be more, maybe into the dozens?

 

[amtkstn]

There is a good list on the trains's magizine forum.

 

[NorthCoastHiawatha]

Let's see off the top of my head.

North Coast Hiawatha

Hill Topper

Pioneer

Desert Wind

River Cities

Three Rivers

Broadway Limited

Silver Palm

Lone Star

Cape Codder

Niagara Rainbow

Montrealer

International

Floridian

Black Hawk

Lake Country Limited

National Limited

 

[Gfoley4]

Lots of stuff on Wikipedia - I think the article is "List of Amtrak routes"

 

[railiner]

If the O.P. wants to learn a lot more of the Amtrak past, with full details......it's all here...http://www.timetables.org/browse/

Enjoy!

 

[zephyr17]

Of current trains, my nominee for the "anti-flagship" is:

Hoosier State-slow, indirect, rough track and no services, bad station times at its terminus at Indianapolis

 

[jis]

Just because there is no Hilltopper to beat around anymore

 

[oldtimer]

Just because there is no Hilltopper to beat around anymore

Wait I hear that a Lake County Limited due to arrive at CUS sometime this year!

 

[PaulM]

Let's see off the top of my head.North Coast Hiawatha

Hill Topper

Pioneer

Desert Wind

River Cities

Three Rivers

Broadway Limited

Silver Palm

Lone Star

Cape Codder

Niagara Rainbow

Montrealer

International

Floridian

Black Hawk

Lake Country Limited

National Limited

Gulf Breeze

Houston section of Texas Eagle

River Cities (connection between the Mules and City of New Orleans)

 

[railiner]

Let's see off the top of my head.North Coast Hiawatha

Hill Topper

Pioneer

Desert Wind

River Cities

Three Rivers

Broadway Limited

Silver Palm

Lone Star

Cape Codder

Niagara Rainbow

Montrealer

International

Floridian

Black Hawk

Lake Country Limited

National Limited

Gulf Breeze

Houston section of Texas Eagle

River Cities (connection between the Mules and City of New Orleans)

Arrowhead/Northstar

Expo 74

Prairie Marksman

Bay State

Atlantic City Express

Inter-American

Shenandoah

 

[zephyr17]

Let's see off the top of my head.

North Coast Hiawatha

Hill Topper

Pioneer

Desert Wind

River Cities

Three Rivers

Broadway Limited

Silver Palm

Lone Star

Cape Codder

Niagara Rainbow

Montrealer

International

Floridian

Black Hawk

Lake Country Limited

National Limited

Gulf Breeze

Houston section of Texas Eagle

River Cities (connection between the Mules and City of New Orleans)

Arrowhead/NorthstarExpo 74

Prairie Marksman

Bay State

Atlantic City Express

Inter-American

Shenandoah

Chief (Amtrak resurrection version, summer 1972 only).

 

[jis]

Let's see off the top of my head.

North Coast Hiawatha

Hill Topper

Pioneer

Desert Wind

River Cities

Three Rivers

Broadway Limited

Silver Palm

Lone Star

Cape Codder

Niagara Rainbow

Montrealer

International

Floridian

Black Hawk

Lake Country Limited

National Limited

Gulf Breeze

Houston section of Texas Eagle

River Cities (connection between the Mules and City of New Orleans)

Arrowhead/NorthstarExpo 74

Prairie Marksman

Bay State

Atlantic City Express

Inter-American

Shenandoah

Chief (Amtrak resurrection version, summer 1972 only).

Duquesne

Valley Forge (Boston - Harrisburg)

Champion

Spirit of St. Louis

George Washington/James Whitcomb Riley

Mountaineer (Norfolk - Chicago via Roanoke - 1975)

South Wind

Texas Chief

Empire State Express (New York - Detroit via Canada 1975)

Blue Ridge (Washington - Cumberland - subsumed by Capitol Ltd.)

Michigan Executive (Jackson - Detroit)

State House (Chicago - St. Louis with full Dining Service! 1975)

Metroliner

New England Express

(these two replaced by Acelas)

+ a whole host of NEC and Empire Service trains lost names and became Regionals and Empire Service respectively. But since there are actually more trains now than before I guess they don;t need to be listed.

TAFN

 

[railiner]

Michigan Executive? Really? :giggle:

I'll 'see' your Michigan Executive, and 'raise you' one Valp'o Local......

Then there were a few segments that lost service such as Silver service from Tampa to St. Petersburg, The Illini from Champaign to Decatur, The Lake Cities from Detroit to Toledo, The Niagara Rainbow from Niagara Falls to Detroit, the Broadway via the Port Road branch, the Broadway via the B&O PGH to CHI, The SW Chief via Streator, also via Ottawa, Ks., and also via Pasadena, the CS via Woodland, the Adirondack via Mechanicville, the Sunset via Phoenix, .......etc......probably lots more.....

 

[Bob Dylan]

Did I miss them or did we overlook the Pioneer, the Inter-American/Aztec Eagle and the "Temporarily Suspended" Sunset East ??

 

[JayPea]

Another segment losing service is the EB from Spokane to Seattle via Yakima, Ellensburg, and Auburn.

 

[SubwayNut]

I'm on Cape Cod at the moment and arrived on the MBTA Commuter Rail CapeFlyer. the last train to the Cape ended in the 1990s was Cape Codder that ran one round-trip per weekend (arriving on Friday, leaving Sunday) during summer only to Hyannis (via a different route on the mainland compared to today's CapeFlyer (its its first season)

 

[jis]

Another segment losing service is the EB from Spokane to Seattle via Yakima, Ellensburg, and Auburn.

That happened when the North Coast Hiawatha went away. Originally for some reason the North Coast Hiawatha used to go via Stevens Pass, and the Empire Builder via Stampede Pass. When the NCH died, the EB was rerouted via Stevens Pass, and the new Portland section of the EB was created which was routed via the SP&S Columbia Gorge route thus allegedly maintaining service to Pasco, and serving a new route. Of course at that time the other bank of Columbia River was also served by the Pioneer, which later went away, leaving the EB Portland Section as the sole train serving Columbia Gorge.

I'm on Cape Cod at the moment and arrived on the MBTA Commuter Rail CapeFlyer. the last train to the Cape ended in the 1990s was Cape Codder that ran one round-trip per weekend (arriving on Friday, leaving Sunday) during summer only to Hyannis (via a different route on the mainland compared to today's CapeFlyer (its its first season)

Cape Codder ran only very briefly. It was a service started by Amtrak funded partly by Massachusetts AFAIR (and could be recalling wrongly), and it went away when the funding went away.
I just realized a few interesting things:

1. If the Hilltopper existed today it would not have required any state to fund it. Its meandering route stretched to over 1500 miles!

2. There was no rail service to Niagara Falls until after 1975. There was a motor coach connection from Buffalo.

3. There was no through service to Toronto (Maple Leaf). Going to Toronto involved a change to an RDC at Buffalo. The Rainbow Bridge was not used for the service.

4. There were only three daily and two weekdays only trains between Washington DC and Boston!

5. The number of trains between Albany and Buffalo has not changed substantially since 1975. It is time that NY State did something about that.

6. The New York - Buffalo - Detroit service via Canada changed name from Empire State Express to Niagara Rainbow sometime between 1972 and 1975. The connection to Toronto was also from this train.

7. On A Day there was no service west of Buffalo. Buffalo was a terminus for Amtrak service. Nor was there anything going north of Albany or Springfield! So no Adirondack or Montrealer! LSL started in the revised July 71 timetable.

8. On weekdays there were as many total number of trains running between New York and Washington DC as there are Acelas today, in the revised July 1971 timetable.

9. In 1971 July revised timetable, the North Coast Hiawatha ran as a section of the EB three days a week, running together as a single train from Chicago to Minneapolis and then again from Spokane to Seattle, and the whole trains traveled bya Stampede Pass. There was no passenger service through Stevens Pass, the current route of the Seattle section of the EB.

Fascinating stuff....

 

[Nathanael]

Of the "lost" segments, the one I think most needs to be restored is Detroit-Toledo.

I know it doesn't seem like much, but I've personally witnessed customers coming up to the Amtrak ticket office in Syracuse, NY, asking about tickets to Detroit, and upon being told they'd have to take a bus from Toledo, turning their noses up and leaving. I read somewhere that Detroit-NYC is the most requested unserved city pair among phone calls to Amtrak's national reservation hotline. Et cetera.

It's short, so it has to be cheaper than things like Sunset East or North Coast Hiawatha -- but it would have a huge "network effect" if done right.

 

[jis]

Of the "lost" segments, the one I think most needs to be restored is Detroit-Toledo.
I know it doesn't seem like much, but I've personally witnessed customers coming up to the Amtrak ticket office in Syracuse, NY, asking about tickets to Detroit, and upon being told they'd have to take a bus from Toledo, turning their noses up and leaving. I read somewhere that Detroit-NYC is the most requested unserved city pair among phone calls to Amtrak's national reservation hotline. Et cetera.

It's short, so it has to be cheaper than things like Sunset East or North Coast Hiawatha -- but it would have a huge "network effect" if done right.

I agree. Due to the way the track are laid out, either it will have to be a Detroit terminator, or go to Dearborn to continue on to Chicago thus providing single seat rides from the east to Ann Arbor among others. Perhaps the LSL could be rerouted that way, though it would probably add a couple of hours to its schedule given the situation with the tracks between Toledo and Detroit/Dearborn.

 

[JayPea]

9. In 1971 July revised timetable, the North Coast Hiawatha ran as a section of the EB three days a week, running together as a single train from Chicago to Minneapolis and then again from Spokane to Seattle, and the whole trains traveled bya Stampede Pass. There was no passenger service through Stevens Pass, the current route of the Seattle section of the EB.Fascinacting stuff....

Fascinating, indeed! The configuration of trackage through downtown Spokane at A-Day was radically different than it is today. In those days, the NP route through Stampede Pass and the GN route through Stevens Pass ran on separate sets of tracks through downtown. The tall bridge that splits into a Y just west of downtown hadn't been built yet and there was no connection between the two. The EB ran from day 1 on the NP tracks, through Stampede Pass to Seattle, in Spokane because the GN tracks were slated for demolition due to construction of Expo '74, the World's Fair, on that site. Thus no passenger service to Seattle via Stevens Pass. The Y bridge was completed in December 1972, and the Hiawatha was rerouted over Stevens Pass in April 1973, giving service to Ephrata, Wenatchee, Everett, and Edmonds. When the Hiawatha was discontinued in 1979, it wasn't until 1981 that service over Stevens Pass was reinstated and the EB was configured as it is today.

 

[railiner]

Another segment losing service is the EB from Spokane to Seattle via Yakima, Ellensburg, and Auburn.

That happened when the North Coast Hiawatha went away. Originally for some reason the North Coast Hiawatha used to go via Stevens Pass, and the Empire Builder via Stampede Pass. When the NCH died, the EB was rerouted via Stevens Pass, and the new Portland section of the EB was created which was routed via the SP&S Columbia Gorge route thus allegedly maintaining service to Pasco, and serving a new route. Of course at that time the other bank of Columbia River was also served by the Pioneer, which later went away, leaving the EB Portland Section as the sole train serving Columbia Gorge.

I'm on Cape Cod at the moment and arrived on the MBTA Commuter Rail CapeFlyer. the last train to the Cape ended in the 1990s was Cape Codder that ran one round-trip per weekend (arriving on Friday, leaving Sunday) during summer only to Hyannis (via a different route on the mainland compared to today's CapeFlyer (its its first season)

Cape Codder ran only very briefly. It was a service started by Amtrak funded partly by Massachusetts AFAIR (and could be recalling wrongly), and it went away when the funding went away.
I just realized a few interesting things:

1. If the Hilltopper existed today it would not have required any state to fund it. Its meandering route stretched to over 1500 miles!

2. There was no rail service to Niagara Falls until after 1975. There was a motor coach connection from Buffalo.

3. There was no through service to Toronto (Maple Leaf). Going to Toronto involved a change to an RDC at Buffalo. The Rainbow Bridge was not used for the service.

4. There were only three daily and two weekdays only trains between Washington DC and Boston!

5. The number of trains between Albany and Buffalo has not changed substantially since 1975. It is time that NY State did something about that.

6. The New York - Buffalo - Detroit service via Canada changed name from Empire State Express to Niagara Rainbow sometime between 1972 and 1975. The connection to Toronto was also from this train.

7. On A Day there was no service west of Buffalo. Buffalo was a terminus for Amtrak service. Nor was there anything going north of Albany or Springfield! So no Adirondack or Montrealer! LSL started in the revised July 71 timetable.

8. On weekdays there were as many total number of trains running between New York and Washington DC as there are Acelas today, in the revised July 1971 timetable.

9. In 1971 July revised timetable, the North Coast Hiawatha ran as a section of the EB three days a week, running together as a single train from Chicago to Minneapolis and then again from Spokane to Seattle, and the whole trains traveled bya Stampede Pass. There was no passenger service through Stevens Pass, the current route of the Seattle section of the EB.

Fascinating stuff....

While you are quite correct in that there was no direct rail service to Niagara Falls on Amtrak early on, it was still possible to get to Niagara Falls by rail, although it would require taking the TH&B RDC from Buffalo, and then backtracking to Niagara Falls, Ontario on the CN....not a likely choice when there was frequent bus service from Buffalo to both sides of The Falls.....

And while there was no direct rail service west from Buffalo until the Lakeshore was restored, you could use the TH&B to get to Toronto, and then go west to either Windsor for a taxi connection to Detroit and onto Chicago, or to the west coast on CP or CN.....

So Buffalo was the end-of-the-line for Amtrak, but was not a total rail passenger 'dead-end'......